


Deck

by BurningTea



Series: Nora [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas and Hannah roadtrip, Cas gets a new outfit, Cas helps build a deck, Hannah helps with a toddler, Implied Relationship, Jake Stone buys it for him, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 19:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10623258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/pseuds/BurningTea
Summary: Months after Castiel took on another angel's Grace, he gets a message from Nora asking if he'll visit to help her with some home repairs. He takes a break from persuading the angels to return to Heaven and takes Hannah to visit his friend.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I love Hannah, and Nora, and feel we should have had much more of both of them. So, here they are together. I also have a weakness for how outsiders see Castiel. Enjoy!
> 
> (I was watching a lot of The Librarians when I wrote this. I refuse to apologise for the random AU insert)
> 
> [Link to beautiful art!](http://entirely-the-wrong-sort.tumblr.com/post/159560513460/my-artwork-for-humanformdragons-beautiful-fic)

Nora thinks about Steve sometimes. It’s not like she sits and broods about him all the time. She’s busy, and she has a kid to care for, and a friend of only a few months isn’t the biggest loss she’s faced in her life.

Still, she remembers working with the guy. As she sorts out the schedule for the Gas N Sip or picks up after Tanya, she remembers getting to know him, slowly, and the way he stayed just as kind as he’d seemed at first. As she meets friends for drinks or considers joining a dating website, she remembers the night she came back from a bad date to find him in pain and his boyfriend tidying up her place.

As she sits and sips coffee on her deck, she finds herself wondering if part of why Steve left was to be with Dean again. She isn’t sure if she thinks that would be a good thing or not.

Today, the sun is warm and welcome, and she sits with her bare feet on the grass and the flaking wood of the deck under her rear. Steve said he’d help her paint it, or rather she said he could, if he felt he needed to. She never would have needed payment for looking after the guy that time he got sick. Anyone can get a cold, after all, and if he needed her to think he had his own place then she would let him, but Nora has never been stupid.

It’s been months since she saw him. She isn’t sure how many. He’s probably got set up in a new life by now, and doesn’t really think about her at all. Even so, she’s feeling nostalgic, and she pulls out her phone before she has time to hesitate.

He can always ignore her message if he wants to.

***

Castiel feels the phone vibrate with a message, but he’s sitting with Hannah on a bench in a park and he doesn’t want to disrupt their conversation. The sun is warm, and the breeze lifts strands of his hair. He’s sure he didn’t used to notice these things so well, back when he had his own Grace.

Hannah sits with her brow furrowed, staring out over the park.

“I don’t understand,” she says. “Why would you want to stay here?”

“There’s beauty here, Hannah,” he says. “If you could only-”

“We’ve discussed this before,” she says. “Castiel, there’s beauty, but it’s not for us. And our brothers and sisters need you. We all need you in Heaven. You’re the only one left.”

Castiel sighs. Another human affectation he’s found hard to shed.

“Heaven doesn’t need me,” he says. “I don’t… Hannah, I’ve spent so much time here on Earth, been altered so much by it, that I don’t know if I can be a part of Heaven anymore.”

“But you want to be,” she says. She doesn’t need to turn her human head to look at him. Her angelic eyes look in all directions, but enough of them are latched onto him. Not so many eyes as he used to have, of course, but Hannah is not much damaged by war and every one of her eyes still works. “You want to be a part of home.”

Home. A loaded word. Castiel didn’t used to know how much, until he was denied his.

“Of course I want to be home,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean I should be.”

Hannah shakes her head, lifting the styrofoam cup of coffee Castiel insisted she buy and taking a sip. She doesn’t wrinkle her nose or pull a face or any of the tells a human would use, but Castiel sees the ripple in her true self. She hasn’t quite gotten used to coffee.

“I promised you I’d help round up the angels,” he says, “but I can’t go with you when you return to Heaven.”

“Because you belong here now?” she asks, and that is an edge of bitterness he hears. Possibly. In some ways Hannah is easier to read than almost anyone Castiel has known, but in others she’s as distant as the stars. “You belong here, with them?”

Castiel sits back and takes a drink from his own cup. It’s stronger than what he bought for Hannah, because he has become used to coffee, and he remembers feeling he needed it back when he was being Steve. Now, it’s difficult to taste it properly, but he tries to let the taste be experienced.

“I didn’t say that.”

They don’t speak again, and Castiel eventually pulls out the phone and checks the messages. It’s always possible it’s from Sam, with news, at last, of where Dean might be. Instead, he finds himself staring at a string of letters that at first make no sense at all. When he manages to parse them, he finds his lips tugging into a smile.

“Castiel?” Hannah asks. “What is it?”

“Nora,” Castiel says, and this time they do make contact with their hosts’ eyes. “How would you like to be introduced to one of my friends?”

***

The rumble of an engine draws Nora to the window, one of Tanya’s stuffed toys dangling from her right hand and the handles of three mugs in her other. She feels her eyebrows rise as she takes in the golden-colored car at the curb, and even more so as she sees Steve behind the wheel. Not the kind of thing she’d picture him driving, though she can’t now decide what would suit him better.

And damn it. She isn’t ready. She only got Tanya down for her nap as early as she did so she’d have time to clean some of the mess, and there are still plates needing washing and a small army of toys hiding all over the place, not to mention that laundry she hasn’t finished with. Back when Steve visited her home regularly, Tanya wasn’t old enough to cause this chaos. Still, Steve being early can’t be altered now. He’s just going to have to put up with the mess.

She rushes through to the kitchen and dumps the mugs in the sink, tossing the toy octopus onto a chair as she goes past, and by the time she hears the knock at the door she’s already on her way to open it.

“Steve,” she says, smiling up at him. “Hey. Great to see you. Come in.”

He gives her one of those small smiles as he steps past her, and the woman behind him does the same. In her case, the smile looks even less practiced, but Nora got used to Steve’s slight awkwardness over those months he worked for her, and she just smiles back at them both warmly.

Once the front door is shut and they’re in the kitchen, Nora looks at at Steve, who for once seems to get it.

“Oh, yes. I hope you don’t mind me bringing my, er, my…”

“Sister,” the woman says. She isn’t looking at Nora. He gaze seems to be drifting round the room, her head tipped back as though the ceiling is the most interesting part of a house to check out. “I’m C…Steve’s sister.”

“Yes,” Steve says, and if they both want to pretend they’re believable, then Nora will go with it. “My sister. Hannah.”

Nora nods and considers holding out a hand, but Hannah isn’t even looking in her direction.

“Good to meet you,” Nora says. “I’m Nora, but I suppose Steve already told you that.”

“Yes,” Hannah says. “You gave him meaningful employment and money, and you have a child called Tanya.”

She says it like she’s reading from a dossier, and Nora isn’t sure why that’s the word her brain supplies her with. Dossier. Like it’s a spy film she’s in all of a sudden. It’s just…they’re both wearing suits and overcoats, and she’s watched shows about FBI agents who don’t look a million miles away from how the two of them are standing in her kitchen. Hannah especially looks detached, like she’s on a mission rather than a visit. Steve doesn’t hold himself quite the way he did. But that’s probably just her memory making him into something smaller than he was.

“I did,” she says. “And I do, yes. She’s having a nap right now, but she’d love to see you again, Steve. She always enjoyed your singing.”

Tanya doesn’t remember Steve, but as a baby she did settle well when Steve sang. It could be Nora’s imagination, but Steve looks almost embarrassed. Hannah finally drops her gaze from the ceiling and looks at Nora.

“A single voice raised in song was never the Lord’s intention,” she says.

Nora catches herself before she lets the surprise show on her face. Steve never really talked about religion, but then again Nora doesn’t tend to and it doesn’t stop her brother being irritatingly bombastic about some matters of faith.

“Okay,” she says, slowly. “So…do you both want to sing to my daughter?”

“It will be an honor,” Hannah says.

Steve clears his throat and throws a look at Hannah that speaks of words being had at some point, though he looks more exasperated than angry.

“You mentioned the deck?” he says. “I didn’t bring any supplies, but I can go-”

“Oh, I have some things,” Nora says. “Borrowed some from Jake. He said he might come round and help, but he gets called away by work so easily. You know how it is.”

She could kick herself for that. Steve wouldn’t know what that was like back when she knew him. He was always ready to pick up an extra shift, but it’s not like working at the Gas N Sip is a jet-setting lifestyle. Jake has always been the friend in their group who drops the names of distant places and who could be called to travel anywhere.

But Steve’s nodding.

“It can be difficult, being needed elsewhere, and not being able to be home,” he says, and this time he shares a look with Hannah.

She always wondered if he had spent time in the army or something like that. It was just little things, little comments, and he never wanted to speak much about his past. Now, Nora thinks that Hannah may or may not be Steve’s sister by blood. There are other ways of forging a close bond, after all.

“Well, anyway,” Nora says. “I have the paint and brushes. Do you, er, have something to change into?”

“What’s wrong with what we’re wearing?” Hannah asks.

“It’s customary to change clothing depending on your occupation,” Steve says, leaning in a little as though he thinks that’ll make his comment for Hannah’s ears only.

Hannah frowns.

“I know that,” she says, as though Steve’s just questioned her preparation for a task. “But our present clothing won’t stop us from painting a deck.”

She says the last word oddly, with an element of doubt.

“I think I can find you both something better to wear,” Nora says, sidestepping the issue of whether or not suits are painting clothes. “I’ve got an old shirt and jogging pants you can wear, Hannah. And Jake left some things here after helping with the dining room…”

She trails off and sees that Steve is now frowning. The same thought must have hit him.

“Well, okay. Those’ll be too short on you.”

“Show us the deck first,” Hannah says. “We should come up with a plan.”

“I doubt it’ll take long,” Nora says, as she leads them through to the back. “Maybe strip the wood? A couple of coats of paint?”

Steve’s been out here before, but she can’t quite get straight in her head how much of a guest he is now. He stayed in her house, more than once, and they were at the point she was going to ask him if he wanted to rent her spare room, but now it’s months and months since she’s seen him, or heard from him. And Hannah hasn’t ever been here.

The back door opens right onto the deck, and they all come to a halt in the late morning sun. Steve narrows his eyes and tilts his head. Hannah doesn’t seem to even be looking at the wood. If anything, she’s staring out over the trees at the back of the house. Something about those, at least, seems to please her.

“You just want it painted?” Steve asks.

He wanders across the deck, still looking far more intent than decking normally makes Nora feel, and steps down onto the lawn. When he kneels, peering under the decking, Nora walks to the edge and looks down.

“You think it needs more than some paint?” she asks.

A faint throb of concern can’t quite be pushed aside. She has enough money to get by, but not so much she can afford anything frivolous, and the deck isn’t exactly a necessity. She does like to sit out here, though. Paint is already bought, but she doesn’t really have the budget for more.

“Some of this is rotten,” Steve says.

“A third of the underneath needs replacing,” Hannah says, still without having glanced once at what’s under her feet. “You need more materials.”

“Oh.”

Running a hand over her face, Nora sighs. She’s tired. It’s always there, of course, what with having a full time management role and with raising her daughter by herself, and her friends can be great, but it’s not the same as having someone to share the load. She thought getting this one job done would be more of a way to reach out to a friend she hasn’t seen in a while, and instead here she is faced with the knowledge that one of her few calm spots in life is rotten.

“You seem upset,” Steve says.

“I am sorry I can’t bring you better tidings,” Hannah says, almost at the same time, and somehow this sounds less awkward than other things she’s said. “Can it be fixed?” 

“It’s just… I like to sit out here,” Nora says. “Not sure I have the money to get it rebuilt. But I can’t just leave it, not with Tanya walking now.”

It can’t be so rotten to be dangerous yet, but Nora isn’t risking it. Even clearing the deck will cost money and time, though.

“I can fix it,” Steve says, and when he stands he has that determined look on his face he would get sometimes about pulling a double shift or making sure some part of the store ran right. “I’m sure we can work out how.”

The thing about that look is that it always had the combined sense he had no idea how to achieve his objective and that he’d go to his grave refusing to give up on it, which had never seemed quite right about stacking bottles of violently colored energy drinks or getting the slushie machine to stop exploding.

“If it’s rotten, you’re going to need wood and power tools and…and, well, that kind of thing,” Nora says. “I don’t have any of that.”

Hannah hasn’t moved from her spot in the middle of the deck, but she speaks with what sounds like confidence.

“If it’s important we fix this part of your home, then we’ll find what’s needed,” she says. “Tell me where to go to collect them.”

The look Steve throws his sister is one of such gratitude that again Nora feels she’s missed a step.

“Okay,” Nora says. “Well, if you’re sure. Um. I suppose I can ask if anyone has power tools they can lend me.”

“I have a card,” Steve says firmly. “We’re going to rebuild your deck.”

***

In the end, it turns out Jake is just back from his latest trip, and he arrives thirty minutes later with his hair spiked less carefully than usual and his eyes looking tired. He takes one look at Steve and claps him on the shoulder, grinning.

“You back for good, or is this a flying visit?” he asks, and Nora doesn’t understand quite why Steve flinches, but she sees Jake register it, too. She sees him process it. 

“No,” Steve says. “No flying of any kind was involved.”

“We got here by car,” Hannah says gravely. 

Jake shares a look with Nora and his mouth pulls into an expression that says he regrets his phrasing. He turns back to Steve and smiles.

“Hey, it’s just good to see, man. Are we painting this deck or what?”

Jake, it turns out, has power tools and some loyalty card for a local place that sells everything else they need, and he takes Steve off in his truck to get everything. It leaves Nora with Hannah, who reacts to an offer of coffee as though she’s following a script she’s never really seen the point of.

They sit at the kitchen table, Hannah’s mug losing steam as she ignores it, and Nora finds herself chatting about Steve.

“I’ve never seen anyone get to grips with that machine so well,” she says. “Not at first. At first, I think he was having a war with it, but your brother doesn’t quit, does he?”

Hannah doesn’t exactly pull a face, because so far everything about her has been controlled and low key, but there is a certain set to her features that says she isn’t delighted.

“I didn’t used to think so,” she says.

Ah. Right. Nora feels that sinking under her feet sensation that says she’s walked into drama she didn’t know about. The last time was when Jake and his girlfriend were arguing about something and she had no idea why mentioning tic-tacs caused two hours of non-verbal tension. That was weeks ago, though. And at least she knows Jake and has met Cassie more than once. Hannah, she didn’t even know existed until a few hours ago. Steve maybe needs to start telling people when he’s bringing family with him.

“Well, I suppose he does quit sometimes,” Nora says. “He quit his job. To be honest, though, he seemed like he was ready to move on. You know?”

Hannah meets her gaze. Those eyes of hers are as bright and deep as Steve’s, and Nora didn’t think she’d ever meet anyone else like that. Maybe blood sister, after all.

“You believe people should move on?” Hannah asks. “From their…their job? Their role?”

Nora shrugs. She isn’t going to try to work out the undercurrents to this.

“Well, yeah. Yeah, if it’s not working for them anymore, or they have something else they need to do.”

“Would you move on?” Hannah asks.

Nora looks away, taking in her tidy(ish) kitchen in the early afternoon light. Tidy as far as it goes, anyway. It’s time for lunch, really, but she’s given Jake and Steve instructions to bring back sandwiches. Later, tomorrow at the latest, she needs to go over the schedule for the next month, and she has to remember that Susie saved up all of her vacation days and is off work for a couple of weeks. Tanya needs new shoes as soon as Nora can get hold of them, and she’s sort of agreed to help Jake plan his proposal.

“I think I have my life here,” she says.

“And you don’t want to turn your back on it?” Hannah asks.

Nora shrugs.

“I’m not saying I’d stay here if a really good offer came up. I suppose, if I saw a job that paid really well, or met someone who didn’t live here and we got serious, I’d think about it. But I have a job here, and it’s not…well, it’s not glamorous and it’s not what I dreamed of, but it pays the bills. You know?”

“And paying bills is important,” Hannah says. She sounds to be feeling her way through an idea.

“Well, yes,” Nora says. “They’re not the most important thing in life, though, are they?”

“No?” Hannah asks.

As in on cue, Tanya’s bubbling voice drifts through from her room. Hannah shifts just a little, and Nora pushes her chair back.

“That’s my daughter,” she says. “I’ll just be a minute.”

When she look round from lifting Tanya out of her bed, Hannah is standing in the doorway. The look on her face might be curiosity.

“She’s so small,” Hannah says.

“Yeah. Not as small as she was,” Nora says, and catches a hand that’s heading for her earring. “I should get her dressed. Steve will want to see her.”

“C…Steve knows her?”

There it is again, that hesitation over the name. Nora only gives it a moment before she folds the thought away. Some people want a different name, or a different life, or they don’t have a choice in it. Or maybe it’s a nickname Hannah’s more used to using. Whatever it is, the woman’s respecting her brother’s choice to use ‘Steve’ here, and Nora isn’t going to make things awkward.

“Yeah. He babysat her once.” As she speaks, she sets to work getting Tanya dressed. Nora loves seeing her daughter grow, but getting her dressed hasn’t gotten any easier. Today, she offers Tanya the bright orange top she loved last week, but Tanya shakes her head and pouts. “You have to wear something, Tanya,” she tells her daughter. “Do you want the blue dress?” 

“Dress,” Tanya agrees, making grabbing hands.

Nora complies and sighs again when Tanya ignores the shoes she’s meant to be wearing and picks up the multi-coloured plastic boots instead. 

“Steve really helped me out agreeing to look after her,” she says, picking up her story. It was when he hurt his arm.”

Hannah tilts her head to the side.

“Hurt his arm?” she asks.

Okay, so Steve didn’t share that with his sister. Not for the first time, Nora wonders again how Steve came to be so much on his own, especially when he’s now visiting with his sister. Right now, she shrugs.

“His boyfriend kept an eye on him,” she says. “Apparently Steve slipped on some milk, but Dean cleaned up and got Steve’s arm seen to.”

And then disappeared, but Nora doesn’t mention that.

“Dean?” Hannah asks, and that is not approval. “I thought Dean Winchester left Steve on his own when he was…here.”

Nora gets Tanya into the dress and boots and agrees they can have a drink in a minute before turning back to her conversation with Hannah. Winchester. It’s strange to have a last name to fit with the man she met. For all this time, he’s just been ‘Dean’.

“Yeah. I got the impression it was a surprise visit, but Steve didn’t really talk about it much.”

“I take it Dean didn’t stay?” Hannah asks, and that is definitely disapproval.

“At the time, I thought he was in the area for a while,” Nora says. With Tanya finally dressed, she lifts her and carries her through to the lounge, talking to Hannah over her shoulder as she goes. The other woman trails behind her. “Turns out he didn’t stick around, no. I felt kind of bad for asking, you know?”

“Because Steve missed him,” Hannah says.

“Well, yes. It isn’t easy, when a relationship ends.”

Hannah doesn’t say anything until Tanya is on the floor, playing with a plastic truck, but she does sit on the couch and look thoughtful. She seems to be watching Tanya.

“Truck small,” Tanya says, which makes very little sense as it’s the largest one she owns. “Mommy, truck small.”

Nora picks up the truck and looks at it, but she can’t see what Tanya means. After a moment, Hannah leans in and hands Tanya a toy car. Tanya looks at it, then at Hannah, with the sort of deep suspicion a seasoned police detective reserves for suspects, but after a moment she soften and grins. Nora hadn’t even seen it when she was tidying up, so it must have got lost on the couch or something. In any case, Tanya takes it and smiles, demanding the truck back and dropping the smaller toy into the back of it. 

They both watch Tanya make the truck carry the car across the carpet for a few minutes before Hannah speaks again.

“Their relationship isn’t over.”

Nora is slightly regretting bringing it up, even though she didn’t mean to. This feels a little too much like gossiping about a friend, but it is Steve’s sister, and she does clearly care for him.

“You don’t seem happy about that,” she tries, catching the truck as Tanya sends it spinning under the coffee table and returning it to her. “You don’t approve?”

“I don’t think he’s a good influence,” Hannah says. “I don’t think he helps Steve as much as Steve has helped him, and I think Steve should focus on helping his own.”

Again, there’s a twist to the word that could mean family or could mean some organization. Nora nods. It doesn’t really mean anything, but it gives her some time, so she nods again.

“Okay. So, you think Dean is bad for Steve? You think he’s using him?”

Hannah is sitting almost completely still, her hands clasped together in her lap like she just wants them tidied away while they aren’t being used. Steve was never this quiet and awkwardly graceful in his own body, but she can see echoes.

“Maybe not deliberately,” Hannah says. “But yes. In a way.”

“And have you spoken to Steve about it?” At Hannah’s nod, she pushes on. If she’s going to end up talking about Steve, it might as well be useful. “And what does he think about it?”

“That Dean is the best man he’s ever known,” Hannah says. “But if he’s the best humanity has to offer, then my brother should look elsewhere. The man is… I don’t even know what he is. I know what he was meant to be, but now everything is so confused.”

Nora hasn’t managed to form a sensible question to all of that by the time she hears Jake’s truck pulling up outside. As the doors slam shut she tries to make the best response she can.

“I think most relationships are confusing,” she says. “And I don’t know about ‘meant to be’, not for any of us. I suppose we just have to pick somewhere we feel works and go with it. You know?”

Hannah stares at her, and a few moments later Jake and Steve are in the room, Steve tugging on the sleeves of some new clothes they’ve clearly stopped to buy, and the chance to say anything else about it is gone.

“Did you get everything?” Nora asks. 

Jake disappears into the kitchen without answering, but Steve nods. His eyes look better than ever in the deep blue Henley he’s wearing, and Nora wonders if either of the men thought about that when they picked it. She wonders if they thought about how well it would fit Steve’s frame, either, or about just how- No. She isn’t going to think about Steve like that. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t notice, though. 

“Yes. Jake says so. We’ll start once we’ve eaten.”

Jake reappears with the sandwiches on plates, Tanya’s cut up into pieces in a plastic dish, and it’s one of the strangest lunches Nora has ever had. 

Steve sits on the floor with Tanya as they eat the sandwiches the boys have brought back, answering her questions and speaking to her with the same attention he always gave to Nora. It takes a few minutes for Tanya to warm up to him, but well before the sandwich is gone she’s yelling ‘Seve’ at him and pulling on his arm to make him move the car he’s been given to use. 

Nora sees Hannah watching her brother. The woman looks deep in thought. Steve appears not to notice.

***

These friends of Castiel’s are strange. Hannah can see, she thinks, why the Seraph was drawn to Nora. The woman is kind and honest in a way that not everyone is, and she can’t even imagine having to face this human world with no Grace, but kindness must have felt very necessary to Castiel. It was something she was desperate for herself, even with her Grace intact.

The child is interesting. Watching Castiel interact with someone so small and so vulnerable is perhaps one of the oddest things she’s ever seen. A Seraph, especially one with Castiel’s history, isn’t the first angel she would think of for such a role, but he’s gentle and patient with his friend’s daughter, letting her tug at him and listening to the words she babbles. The throb and ebb of such a tiny soul is close to mesmerizing, but Hannah isn’t sure she would want to be tasked with caring for something so…human and messy.

And Jake is strange, if only because he shows no sense of fear or of wariness. Nora seems slightly wary, but even that is welcome after being around so many people over these last months. Even not knowing she’s an angel, so many of them react with a soul-deep fear of Hannah’s kind. She can sense it, even if she’s never really known more than the basic shape of what they feel. 

Of course, they think of Castiel as a friend, and don’t know she’s an angel, either, and have probably never had anything to do with magic. Perhaps it isn’t really so strange that these humans are more relaxed around Castiel and Hannah, that they are welcoming and friendly. They don’t know any better. 

Still, this glimpse into the life Castiel had is enlightening. If he had this, she can see why it might seem more appealing than the task of reshaping Heaven in the wake of recent years.

Only Castiel doesn’t want this. He wants Dean and Sam, and a thankless, endless task of trying to stop the Winchesters from destroying themselves along with the world. When humanity has this to offer, friendship and sharing and a sense of safety, Hannah can’t see why Castiel would turn his back on this and on his own kind both.

Clearly, there is something about all of this she still doesn’t understand, but if she’s to persuade Castiel to return to Heaven, where he belongs, and help them to rebuild, then she needs to give it more thought.

She takes a bite of her sandwich and watches Castiel’s mangled limbs settle around him in this warm and comfortable home. She thinks perhaps he knows how out of place he is here. She’s starting to think she’s saddened by the fact. It doesn’t get her any closer to understanding why he thinks the place of any Seraph is by the side of two humans who’ve done nothing but set him against the Host, time and time again.

***

The deck turns out to be easier to fix than Castiel had thought. Jake helps him, and Nora, although Hannah looks confused by being asked to play with Tanya. 

“We’ll each take a turn,” Castiel tells her, leaning in again so only Hannah can hear him. And Tanya, who reaches out to pat Castiel’s cheek from her place on Hannah’s hip. “Children need watching over.”

Hannah blinks, her true form rippling a little, and nods. 

“I’ll stand my watch with care,” she says, and leaves Castiel to his work.

In his new clothes, jeans that actually fit and a top that isn’t worn through, Castiel feels like Steve, only if Steve had been able to afford more than survival. It tugs at something in him, working with friends to mend something so small in the grand scheme of things.

In a way, it’s a little like working in the Gas N Sip: a small kingdom to govern and set to rights.

Jake shows him how to measure and cut, and expresses delight that Castiel can always get the measurements exactly right. If he knew anything of Castiel’s true senses, even battered as they are, he wouldn’t be so impressed, but Castiel lets himself accept the praise. It isn’t harming anyone and it feels warm and soothing. To have something so simple to do, to make right, and being told he’s doing well at it, is almost enough to let the gold and jade sensation of happiness wind its way through his being.

Of course, under it all is that fear that Sam won’t find Dean, that grief that says Metatron was telling the truth.

“We’ll get this done in time for steaks,” Jakes says. “And beer. Hey, I’ll call Cassie, get her to come over. That okay?”

Castiel nods, because he didn’t meet Cassie much but she always seemed sweet, and listens as Nora complains with a smile about hosting a party she didn’t intend to. They’re halfway done with the deck by the time the guest list has grown to thirty people, and Tanya is put down for another nap before Nora gets Hannah to help her set the barbecue up.

It’s simple. It’s barely physically demanding for an angel, even one dying by burning inches. Ingesting another angel’s Grace turns out to be a death sentence, the wrong kind of fire scorching him when fire used to be his own being, and Castiel can feel his time running out. Setting Heaven to rights is beyond him, but this? It’s something he can be sure he’ll finish.

Castiel smiles a little each time Jake or Nora make a joke, sharing the occasional look with Hannah, who looks more and more considering, and he helps to rebuild a part of Nora’s home.

***

Nora hands Jake a beer and leans against the wall next to him. It’s dark enough to be called early evening now, and her back yard is full of people. 

She hasn’t seen Hannah for a while, but she’s fairly sure the woman is keeping a close eye on Tanya. Hannah was mortified when she took her attention from Tanya long enough that Tanya tried to make her own deck by banging one of her trucks against the coffee table. For some reason, Steve’s sister seems to think she has to make this up to Nora, even though that table has taken plenty of damage in the past. 

Nora doesn’t quite understand Hannah’s insistence on standing watch, but the increased softness in the woman’s eyes as she looked at Tanya was reason enough to just agree. It seemed important enough to her that Nora let her, but she’s going in to get Tanya to bed soon. 

“It turned out pretty good,” Jake says, nodding in the direction of the deck. “Got all the rotten wood cleared out. Steve’s pretty good with his hands.”

“He’s always been good at seeing things done,” Nora says, thinking back to how well he helped her run the Gas N Sip. Anyone would be lucky to have Steve working with them. “And thanks. I know you just got back.”

“No problem,” Jake says. He grins and tilts his beer bottle over to the other side of the yard, where Steve and Cassie are talking. “Might have to go and remind Cass she’s supposed to talk to more of the guests.”

Nora laughs. Steve only met Cassie once or twice, and both times seemed to have trouble with her name, but it’s a new revelation that they’re both so interested in discussing math. Nora supposes learning new things about people is part of life. She didn’t know Steve had a sister, but now she’s already thinking of asking both Steve and Hannah to visit again.

Not long after, she pats Jake on the shoulder and heads inside, only to find Steve following her. When she stops and turns, he offers her one of his smiles, barely there but so much more real than a lot of people can manage.

“You said we could sing?” he says. 

Nora blinks. She’d forgotten.

“Well, if you want to,” she says. “I’m sure Tanya would love it.”

“I think Hannah’s been looking forward to it,” Steve says. “She misses it. The singing. I guess, we both do.”

“Okay,” Nora says, and opens her mouth to ask what he means. 

She’s cut off by Steve’s phone buzzing, and he pulls it out to check the screen, his face creasing into a frown as he does so. 

“What is it?” Nora asks. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. “It looks like we have to go. S… Someone needs assistance.”

“What with?” Hannah’s voice asks, and Nora turns to find Hannah holding Tanya in the hallway behind them. “Do we have time to sing to Tanya?”

“We’ll make time,” Steve says, sounding firm. “But then we have to go.”

Nora nods, swallowing questions. As they get Tanya to bed, and as she joins in with singing, Steve’s voice a little off-key and Hannah’s hitting every note perfectly, but both of them sounding...right somehow, Nora makes a decision of her own. 

She isn’t going to let it go so long again before she invites Steve back round, him and his sister. The deck’s not just painted but rebuilt, but she can find other reasons to persuade him to stop by. 

Whatever it is that’s going on in Steve’s life now, Nora thinks a few hours of family life is just what he needs.


End file.
